PW's Year of Beer: Dogfish Head Sixty-One

We love beer. That's why we're devoting an entire year to discovering (and drinking) cold ones from near and far. Know of a beer worth shouting out? Send us a note.

Dogfish Head experiments with wild styles and blah, blah, blah, you know the story by now. What you want to know is, how did this latest throw-caution-to-the-wind experiment work out? Sixty-One is their 60 Minute IPA brewed with grape must. (“Must” is the term for grape juice that will be fermented into wine). That’s it. That’s the whole shtick. Whether or not it works depends on whether or not you like red wine, because while this beer retains the hop character of their popular 60 Minute, the grape must turns it into a new thing entirely. The frothy pink head and light ruby color gives you a hint of what is to come. Sixty-One has the fruity, acidic sweetness of a blush, but the carbonation makes the wine character more akin to a wine cooler. There is a beer somewhere in here, too, with plenty of hop bitterness, but it seems to be fighting to get noticed. It’s a puzzling beer that is sure to divide people. Perhaps that’s what makes it worth trying. Sixty-One may be available at at Monk’s Café, Tria and other establishments.